What does it mean when one million people are found fit to work?

DWP says almost one million sick found fit to work reports The Huffington Post:

A third (32%) of all new claimants for employment and support allowance (ESA) were assessed as being fit to work and capable of employment between October 2008 and March 2013 - totalling 980,400 people, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said.

We've now had five years of reporting the numbers of people turned down for ESA as some kind of success story; they're getting disabled people back into work. A third of those who claimed ESA are being found fit to work. Welfare Reform is justified!

Those turned down for Employment and Support Allowance are not necessarily making false claims. They may be fit to work but have not understood the rules, or they may be unable to work but have struggled to fill in the form in such a way that conveys this. Some of those turned down may have had a good case for appeal (40% of appeals are successful), but couldn't face the ordeal. The fact that this complex and mixed group number a million people (or strictly speaking, a million claims) seems unremarkable.

The criteria for Employment and Support Allowance are much stricter than those of Incapacity Benefit, the process takes many more months, with many people either dying, getting better or giving up before a decision is made and some claimants' benefit is stopped after the first year if they have savings or a working partner. Despite this, there were still 2.49 million people on ESA and other incapacity-type benefits in 2013, against the 2.6 million on incapacity benefits in 2008.

Reform to this benefit, at massive cost to government, a very great deal of  personal stress, heartache and hardship for disabled people and their families, as well as a media-driven regression in social attitudes towards disabled people, has only succeeded in reducing the numbers on this kind of benefit by 110,000 people or a little over 4%.

This is what has been achieved since October 2008; there are a little over four percent fewer people on ESA and related benefits than before. It is unclear whether or not the incapacity bill - either in terms of benefits or the cost of assessing for and administering benefits -  has been reduced. A stable 40% of appeals against ESA decisions are successful. Fraud levels (around 0.3%  for incapacity benefits) remain stable.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of those found "fit to work" will have simply moved onto other kinds of benefits such as Job Seeker's Allowance. Disabled people who are fit to work remain unlikely to actually get work, largely due to discrimination.

ESA amendments success in Lords

Yesterday the Welfare Reform Bill (WRB) was debated in the House of Lords. Specifically three amendments that relate to Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).

These amendments were to keep the automatic entitlement to ESA for young disabled people. In order to qualify for the contribution based ESA a person must have made a certain level of NI contributions in the two years before the claim. Previously people such as myself who had never been able to work were given an exemption from this requirement if their disability started before age 20. A kind of levelling of the playing field for those of us who've never had the chance to earn and make NI contributions. If I hadn't had that automatic entitlement to Incapacity Benefit (one of the benefits ESA is replacing) I wouldn't have been able to leave home and go to university. My parents would still be my carers and my mum wouldn't be running her own business.

The government had intended to remove this aspect under the WRB. The amendment called for it to be kept.It was believed that this would be a "too close to call" vote but the Government were defeated with 260 votes for the amendment and 216 against.

The second and third amendments related to the plans to limit entitlement to contribution based ESA to just one year. Some claimants would then be able to go on to claim income based ESA if this time limit did come in in the WRB. But those who had a partner who was working would lose out entirely even if their income is as little as £16K a year. This is likely to lead to increased poverty and knock on affects such as worsening health. Campaigner Sue Marsh has shared how if she lost her ESA the only way they could cope would be if her husband gave up his job to become her carer.

So the second amendment called for the time limit to be increased to two years. This was passed with 234 voting for the amendment and 186 against.

The third amendment called for cancer patients to be exempted from ESA time. In this vote 222 lords voted for the amendment and 166 voting against. This meant an unprecedented third defeat in a row for the government and a much needed boost for campaigners after the work that had gone into promoting The Spartacus Report etc. We haven't won and we can't rest yet but we have achieved something.

Unfortunately however later that evening after most of the Lords had left Lord Freud proposed another amendment to take out the entitlement to ESA for young people. This was passed 132 for, 49 against. At the point this happened the WRB debate had ended. It was restarted for this. As Steven Sumpter explains this is against usual parliamentary procedure and I for one would like to know about the legality of what happened.

The Guardian and The BBC have good coverage of the debates although neither of them cover the sneaky fourth amendment of Lord Freud. The results of the votes are also available.

What's wrong with time-limiting Contributory ESA?

Another summarising primer on these issues for people who aren't necessarily aware of what's going on with UK disability benefits. If you know all about this already, click here for what we need to do about it today.

There are a few reasons why ESA has not become a national scandal, and one of those is that it sounds complicated. But it is vitally important, if you live in the UK it effects you and I am to try to keep this simple, so please bear with me.

Employment Support Allowance is replacing all the old incapacity benefits. It is awarded to people who are considered unable to work due to illness, injury or disability. There are various different levels of benefit, depending on one's level of impairment and National Insurance contributions.

The most serious issue about ESA in the Welfare Reform bill is that for most people on the benefit, there will be a time-limit of one year. These are people who

• (a) are considered unable to work but not considered incapable of work-related activity (people in the "Work Group"). Most people on ESA fall into this category, and it includes people with all manner of severe, chronic and even life-threatening conditions.

• (b) have paid enough National Insurance to be put on the "Contributory" rate. So all of these people have either worked and paid taxes for many years or else became disabled at a very young age. Most people who become incapacitated for work do so in middle-age, so most people on ESA, as with the old Incapacity Benefit, had worked for most of their lives up until that point. 

After a year, all a person's benefit will be means-tested. This means, if they have a working partner or any savings, then they will not have any income of their own. Those disabled people affected by this change were informed last April, before any parliamentary votes on the matter, that they would lose their benefit after one year. This is going to start effecting people's lives in three months time.

There are four very serious problems with this proposal

1. Hardship

Wealthier people, whose partners have well-paid jobs are unlikely to experience real hardship. Single people without savings will not become much poorer. However, the Disability Alliance calculates that on average, a person on this benefit will lose £50 per week. Many people will lose closer to £100.

A partner's income begins to effect benefits at £7500 a year - that's about a twenty-four hour working week at minimum wage. That's still a rather poor household, who cannot afford to lose a penny.

Benefits for people out of work due to ill health have always been higher than unemployment benefit because

• (a) Disabled people have very limited opportunities to improve their situation, which is likely to be longer-term or lifelong - the government's own statistic is that 94% of the ESA "Work" group will not be in work by the end of their first year.
• (b) Disabled life is more expensive. We have fewer opportunities to live frugally, such as turning down the thermostat, washing ourselves, our clothes and bed linen less often, cooking from scratch, selling the car etc.. Meanwhile, partner's of disabled people often can't afford to take on extra hours or a second job, even if they are not an official "carer". 

Often, people dismiss arguments about hardship on the grounds that poor people get “their rent paid” and all sorts of other goodies. First off, if you don't qualify for a means-tested benefit, you don't automatically qualify for Local Housing Allowance, Council Tax Benefit, Free Prescriptions and so on. Not all poor people rent - they may have a nearly-paid mortgage at the point the main breadwinner gets sick. And these days, social housing is extremely hard come by and Local Housing Allowance isn't stretching to cover many private rents, especially not accessible accommodation. When the cuts kick in, there will be a shortfall of £150 a month between the cheapest place I could physically live in my area and the amount of Local Housing Allowance I would be eligible for.

2. Hopelessness


Becoming incapacitated for work involves many losses and a loss of income, together with a more frugal lifestyle is inevitable. Nobody asks that those unable to work should be paid anything like what a person could earn in work.

However, some disabled people have savings or money they've inherited.  People affected by the time-limit will face the prospect of having to live off this money, which either they or someone else had worked hard for, resisting all the temptations they might have spent it on.

There has always been some irony in the disincentives to save money for people who might end up on means-tested benefits, but for disabled people, who crucially, have no other means of improving their situation, this seems particularly unfair. Especially, when the three most common scenarios for a disabled person with savings would be either

• (a) They worked very hard for many years and lived very frugally until they became disabled or
• (b) Because of their care needs, they were unable to move out their parents' home, so had low living expenses and chose not to squander their low incomes or
• (c) Someone else, feeling that the disabled person's future looked bleak, gave or left them a lump sum towards their future security and independence.

3. Pressure on Sick People.

There's no condition in the world, physical, sensory, mental or intellectual, which might benefit from a ticking clock. In fact, I believe the presence of a time limit could be deadly dangerous in two ways:

• (a) An increased risk of suicide. When my physical health has been so bad that I have felt like giving up, I have often found deadlines useful. I have thought, “If it is still like this next month, I will kill myself and it'll all be over and done with.” I have experienced depression at times, but usually such deals have been made on the grounds of being thoroughly fed up. Friends with chronic mental illness have talked about doing the same thing in order to put off that terminal decision, whilst leaving the option open for later. However, I also know people who set a date and then proceeded to make a serious attempt on their lives. And this is when the deadline merely signified, “It's gone on too long now.” rather than, “It's gone on too long and I am about to lose all my income."

Last January, Aliquant wrote this post about how, feeling cornered by the benefits system, suicide seemed quite rational. It's a powerful post because Ali was so articulate; she simply couldn't cope with the risk of more homelessness, further hardship or having to jump through any more hoops. Soon after, 5 Quid for Life was set up, a charity to help people like Ali survive when things go wrong. Since then, the benefits situation has been implicated in at least ten suicides.

• (b) A disincentive to self-management. Looking after your health, when your health is poor, is jolly hard work. Taking unpleasant medication, getting the right amount of exercise, preparing and eating the right food, resting and sleeping when you need to, visiting the appropriate healthcare workers, getting new complications and injuries treated and resisting naughty behaviours that will set you back, can feel like a full-time occupation. If you know that after a year, you're going to lose all income, unless your health significantly deteriorates, then you've got another major disincentive to look after yourself. I don't believe for a minute that anyone would choose to make themselves more ill, to suffer more and to deal with more health-related rigarmorale, even to shorten one's life expectancy. But a system is being created where being a good patient, hard as that is, could actually cost you money. 

I actually find it very distressing when people with far more energy than me fail to look after their health, although looking after is subjective and it is absolutely none of my business anyway. It's probably natural to worry about things that have happened to me happening to other people. However, as some disabled people involved in anti-cuts activism work themselves into the ground and expend twice as much energy in a week than I have in any given year, I am able to reassure myself that, as long as they stay alive, they'll probably wind up too sick to be effected by the time-limit. This situation is all kinds of wrong. There shouldn't be any advantage to getting sicker.


4. Damage Caused to Relationships

Money can't buy you love and poverty doesn't destroy it, but relationships can become a lot tougher when when one partner has literally no income and crucially, no means of bringing in money if they want to. I see three effects of this:

• (a) The time-limit interferes with the future relationships of single disabled people. Lisa has written about how the combination of poverty and disability dramatically reduces one's romantic chances, and the prospect of complete financial dependence will make this worse. Means-tested benefits force claimants to either restrict themselves to very casual and discreet relationships or else to place themselves in complete financial dependence on a partner the moment they begin living together – a moment which is rarely well-defined. 

• (b) The time-limit threatens to undermine existing relationships. Sue has described her fears of becoming a burden on her husband. As Shana Pezaro described, desertion is not an uncommon experience in the face of chronic illness, especially among heterosexual women, and the prospect of total financial dependence will only add to this problem. Some families, especially those with children, may even find that they would be financially better off if they occupied two different households. 

• (c) The time-limit makes disabled men and women, who are already more likely to experience domestic abuse, even more vulnerable. Disabled people are already twice as likely to experience domestic violence. If you have no income at all, then it becomes easy for an abusive partner to completely deny you access to money, to complain about or restrict your expenditure, whether on food or phone calls, bus fare or medicines. It becomes easy for an abuser to tell you what a burden you are, and how you owe them or deserve to be mistreated, when you are both financially and practically dependent on them.   

Unemployed single parents of small children have long had this problematic status, where benefit rules prevent them from having romantic relationships which progress out in the open and at their own natural pace and where the prospect of complete financial dependence can make a person feel as if they are less valuable. This is one of the major reasons that make such families particularly vulnerable to dysfunctional and abusive relationships.


The government's motives for this are deeply cynical.


Years back, when ESA was first discussed by the then Labour Government, the disability blogosphere and messageboards were awash with anxiety about sick people being pressured into work that they just couldn't get. I wrote a post on BBC Ouch! explaining that logically, we had nothing to fear. If Employment Support Allowance was to have a "Work Group", the government simply had to get these people into work. If vast numbers of us were placed in this Work Group, who didn't have a hope of getting a job, we would become bad statistics.

The Conservative Government came up with a way round this, which is to make these people disappear. Anyone on this band of ESA with savings or a working partner will simply disappear after twelve months.  They will not add to the unemployment statistics because they have been declared unfit for work. They will not be claiming any benefit at all.

Here is the link I gave you at the top: This is what we need to do now.

Abandoned Claims

Originally posted at This Is My Blog in response to a Daily Mail article. Unfortunately, today, the Telegraph and the BBC got in on the act...

Woke up this morning to see that a certain right-wing rag has surpassed itself in the propaganda it chooses to spout about ESA.

I'm not going to link to it because it will only upset me and every reader.

The headline asserted that 75% of those who claim ESA are found "fit to work".

This was then broken down that 75% of those who claim ESA were either found "fit to work" or abandoned their claims before testing was complete. It proposed that the abandonment of a claim meant that the claimant was clearly "trying it on".

Legitimate reasons why an ESA claim may be started and then abandoned:

• The claimant dies.


• The claimant gets better, be it a miracle or a new treatment or being bumped up the waiting list for surgery or getting private treatment.


• The claimant, having lost their job, is offered support and a place to stay by their parents or their children. They decide to abandon their claim and re-start it once their move is complete.


• The claimant looks at the highly personal questions on the form and says "you know what, I'll never be this desperate for money, prostitution is less demeaning."


• The claimant wins an insurance or compensation payout that enables them to survive without benefits.


• Due to their condition, the claimant is unable to understand the importance of filling in the form or unable to remember that the form needs doing.


• Due to their condition, the claimant is unable to fill out the forms - perhaps they have a brain injury or learning disability and cannot read and/or write, perhaps they have issues with their hands and cannot physically hold a pen, perhaps they have a mental health condition that causes panic attacks every time they approach the form.


• Due to their condition, the claimant is unable to access support to fill in the forms - for instance they are unable to go out, they do not yet have formal Social Services support, and their CAB is overstretched with permanently engaged phone lines (I have personal experience of urgently needing to get to the CAB but having to wait until support is available).


• The claimant completed the form, but due to their condition, they are unable to travel to and from the medical examination centre alone, and they are unable to secure help and/or funding to allow them to attend. Because their level of impairment does not exist until ATOS say it does, this is not a valid excuse for non-attendance. (I had this issue with my DLA a few years ago).


• The claimant is sitting at home with the heating off, desperately waiting to hear back from the DWP about their claim, which the DWP has lost.

If it was any other publication (I hesitate to use the term "newspaper") I would be shocked and appalled by the deliberate lies and misinformation being used to attack disabled people. Unfortunately, I'm getting used to it, and so is everyone else, and all these little drops of poison are being allowed to drip on into the public consciousness unchallenged.

A useful comment was also added to the original post, by a commenter called Nemonie:

There is also the fact that if you are on JSA and become ill or need surgery, break your leg etc. So that you are considered not able to look for work they will tell you to open a claim for ESA until you are better, which may only be a few weeks. You can also apply for ESA if you work and get ill but don't get statutory sick pay or have run out of statutory sick pay. Again in this case you may only need to claim for a short time.

ESA and the Work Capability Assessment

Today marks the day when the government's scheme to transfer all existing Incapacity Benefit claimants onto Employment and Support Allowance begins.
One and half million people will get their letters calling them into Atos offices for the Work Capability Assessment - the test designed to assess whether someone is genuinely in need of support or if they are fit for work.

Employment Minister Chris Grayling has said that genuine claimants have nothing to fear, that the only people who need to worry are the fakers who just prefer a life on benefits to one of work.

He's wrong. The fakers have nothing to fear; they have options. They are able to go out and work or comply with the regulations to claim Jobseekers Allowance. It's the genuine who are afraid because they have no options. If they could work they would do. No-one wants to be ill. No-one puts up with the 'scrounger' label or the suspicious looks if they don't have to.

Everyone who claims any of the disability benefits know about the WCA. Those on IB or in the work related activity group of ESA have been terrified of it for months. And rightly so - it's a terrible assessment that even the government's own advisory board as well as the man who designed it, have said is not fit for purpose.
They've heard the stories about those who've been denied benefit despite their illnesses. They've read the story of Paul Reekie, who committed suicide when his benefits were stopped.
Now they wait to see how their own claims will turn out.

I've been through two WCAs myself. The first was when I came down with my symptoms of MS, though I didn't have a formal diagnosis at that point. I was summoned to the Atos centre, waiting for what seemed an interminable amount of time, then was called in to see the doctor.
I was scared to start with and my fears were not allayed by he fact that I couldn't understand a word of what the doctor - from Eastern Europe - was saying. Nor could she understand me. She put me through a series of tests, none of which I could do, then sent me on way. The whole thing took maybe 15 minutes at most.

The following week I received the report she had sent to the DWP. I was shocked at what she had written - it was lies from top to bottom. Every test she had done she'd put me as passed even though I hadn't. She had omitted things I had told her and gone against everything that had happened in that room.
In short, she said there was nothing wrong with me.
This was despite being barely able to walk, being unable to feel my pelvic muscles which led to lots of bathroom visits and being so tired I could barely think straight. I couldn't bend down, I couldn't kneel down, I certainly couldn't touch my toes.

I sent the form, along with detailed rebuttals of everything that was wrong, off to the DWP. The following day I received a letter saying I wasn't entitled to benefits because I was fit for work. I then had to ring them up and tell them I'd appealed at which point they said my benefit would be continued until the appeal was heard. I was on tenterhooks, worrying over what would happen about it, if they would listen to me or uphold the Atos doctor's decision.

The next letter I received was one telling me the appeal had been successful and my benefit would continue. I can't tell you how relieved I was.

Last year I underwent the WCA again when I left hospital following my formal diagnosis with MS.
I received a letter from Atos telling me to call and make an appointment - if I didn't, one would be made for me. So I rang and spoke to a very bored and slightly dismissive man who gave me an appointment who gave me an appointment for a date that they decided.
When I arrived, I was shown into the waiting room by a security guard, and greeted by a receptionist who looked at me like I was something foul on the bottom of her shoe.
I waited for about half an hour, all the while getting more and more uncomfortable as I felt the judging stares coming from the staff. If anything is designed to put you off it's that. So far, it was worse than my previous experience.

When I was finally called in I met a very nice lady doctor who seemed to understand about MS. She didn't attempt to make me do anything she knew I couldn't and was very reassuring. Very different from the first assessment so I had hopes that it would be ok.
Well, she didn't lie. But that's about it. Despite having shown some knowledge of MS she placed me in the work related activity group, meaning that with the right support I could work.
Because of course the right support will mean that I no longer struggle to get dressed in the mornings. Or take a shower. Or cook meals. Or walk anywhere. Or need to rest after putting a load of washing on. Or want to cry when the pain in my head gets too bad. And it will get better because of course MS is curable.

I didn't have the strength or the energy to try and appeal though. Not to mention I was scared that they might stop it completely. So I left it as it was. I see an advisor every few weeks, meaning a taxi journey to the jobcentre where I wince with pain as I struggle with the sensory overload of neon lights and too many people.

And in the summer I get to go through it all over again.

Now then Mr Grayling, are you still going to tell me I have nothing to worry about?

Cross posted at Rage against the Coalition

On Naivety and Renewed Hope

Three years ago I wrote a terrifically naïve post for the BBC Ouch! Blog entitled Who's afraid of Wellfare Reform? At the time I believed that there was some real fear-mongering going on, brought about by conjecture on the part of a desperate unpopular government heading into a financial crash. I thought that it was all rhetoric – categorising unemployable people as employable makes for bad statistics. A financial crash was coming and in the next few years, the last thing any government would want to do was risk an artificial rise in unemployment.

I have to counteract the humility with which I admit to such a mistake with the only explanation I have; I am smarter than the government. It's not exactly a boast. Even if I shared the current administration's contempt for people without alarm clocks, the assault on disability benefits is becoming a political disaster. If things are allowed to carry on as they are going, hundreds of thousands of unemployable people will be added to the already record unemployment. Further hundreds of thousands, who they government is spending money on trying to support into work, will never get into work because either they are totally unfit for work or there is no work flexible enough to employ them. And then there is the shift in the media and public feeling, as the human cost increases.

There are three dominant narratives in our culture about disability; triumph, tragedy and villainry. Disabled villains are self-pitying wretches who frequently exaggerate or even fabricate their impairments in order to manipulate others. Thus the media's love of disability benefit fraud - the more audacious, the better. And thus the Daily Mails's recent glee in spinning disablity benefits statistics to make unremarkable facts, like some people have been disabled for more than ten years, sound scandalous.

But that can't last. Until recently, everyone had an anecdote about their friend's uncle's neighbour who claimed Incapacity Benefit for an ingrowing toenail, had one of those mythical free cars and spent half the year skiing on the Costa Brava. Increasingly, everyone has an anecdote about someone they know who has a serious chronic illness, but who has been denied disability benefits, is being subjected to months of stress as they appeal, isn't able to leave the house any more because they can't afford the energy and expense, isn't getting the practical care they need to keep clean and eat properly and so on.

Some people are in deadly danger. Only being a notch or two smarter than the government, three years ago I wrote “All we can be subjected to is yet more hassle and insecurity - not good, but not disasterous.” It was very clumsy to suggest that any increase in the hassle and insecurity we have always experienced wouldn't be disasterous for some of us, but I can't berate myself for failing to imagine that things could be handled this badly. There has always hassle and insecurity - this autumn I was dealing with DLA renewal forms and divorce papers at the same time, and I really couldn't say which was the greatest source of stress. But it is as if the holes in the safety net are widening and falling straight through is becoming a serious prospect for people who don't have the resources or the energy to reach out and cling on. Our most vulnerable have become so much more vulnerable.

It was a matter of time before the tragedies associated with the disability benefit cuts became the story. This has already begun, chiefly in the Guardian and the Mirror. And this government have done as much as they could to turn the public against disabled people – hate crime which includes a reference to DLA simply cannot be unconnected to government rhetoric on disability benefits. But they have forgotten that disabled people are the public. Disabled people are the public's friends, neighbours and family members. Disabled people are what non-disabled people frequently become with age. Disability benefits and the public services we rely upon are part of the deal that everyone has been paying tax for, so that if they or those they love have the need, the support will be there.

Thanks and good wishes to everyone marching today from those of us whose impairments prevent us from doing so. If you're at home today, you can still participate in the DPAC virtual protest and follow the @wheresbenefit gang on Twitter.

Beryl's story: Collapsed lung? You still can't have ESA

Beryl is a woman in her 50s, who has worked all her life and feels she’s always done an honest life’s work. She works as a piano tuner – a very physical job, but one she loves and had every intention of continuing until retirement. That is, until she fell ill, in May 2010. At that point, she hoped that the system would provide for her...

Beryl went to A&E in May 2010 barely able to breathe and was told she had dry pleurisy and a collapsed lung. She struggled for every step, fighting to put one foot in front of the other, as she could barely get enough oxygen into her body. Yet when she applied for ESA and attended a medical in this state, she was passed fit for work. The Atos doctor did not even notice that Beryl was presenting with a collapsed lung.

Not being awarded a benefit to which she was entitled, while clearly unable to work, put Beryl into a difficult situation. From having been able to afford what she needed, Beryl had to adjust, juggling household money in order to keep her business afloat, paying bills for things such as a Yellow Pages advert taken out in good faith, but with several months yet to pay.

“It’s not the money,” she told me, “it’s that they don’t believe you. Every time you speak to people on the phone they say ‘I’m sorry to bother you, I can hear that you’re ill’ but the powers that be have decided that I’m fit to work.”

Beryl appealed. She wrote to her MP, and sent a bundle of supporting evidence to the Job Centre, including letters from her GP and her consultant stating that she could barely walk or breathe, and that it would be at least a year before Beryl could hope to have recovered, if indeed she would recover at all. The appeal was heard in December 2010. However, they did not consider any of the new evidence – it was a mere rubberstamp exercise, to confirm the original decision. Although Beryl was too weak to leave the house, now relying on neighbours to bring food and help her to manage, the Job Centre decided she was fit and able to return to work.

Fortunately, Beryl was awarded Disability Living Allowance and a Blue Badge which has helped her to some extent; she won these on the same evidence presented for her ESA application. She has also applied for a tribunal for her ESA, which means that she has to be paid until the tribunal is heard, but she will still have to go through the stress of a hearing to prove entitlement, something Beryl is dreading.

The MP has written asking the Department of Work and Pensions to investigate, and for a copy of their files, but has had no reply.

Beryl is still very unwell. Although she now has a diagnosis, there are no guarantees as to what level her health can be restored – she may be disabled for the rest of her life, and will certainly remain seriously ill for the near future. However, she is still being chased by the Job Centre, because as far as they’re concerned there’s nothing wrong with her.

A lovely lady works all her life, builds up a successful business, pays her taxes – and then the system lets her down when she needs it most. Ten months from when she fell ill Beryl still hasn’t been awarded ESA, but as she can barely manage to make a cup of tea she certainly couldn’t return to work. This is the system we trust to support us when we need it most. The system, quite frankly, is screwed.


[This article was also posted at FlashSays.com]

Comprehensive Spending Review - Live Blog Impact on Disabled People

Cross posted from BenefitScroungingScum

As the details of the Comprehensive Spending Review are announced over the next few hours I'll try to put those aspects which affect disabled people into this blog as quickly as possible. Watch this space...

• Cuts might seem less traumatic to an already frightened and vulnerable population if the ConDem government made at least a token effort to disguise their glee.  

• Tweeted by @jonesythered "...Reform the welfare system that our country can no longer afford" - Translation: 'We're shutting down the welfare state. Bye bye!' #csr 
• "Public services and welfare system will be put on a sustainable footing" George Osborne. Translation "Cut, cut, cut"
• "Fairness means creating a welfare system that helps the vulnerable, supports people into work and is affordable for the working families who pay for it." George Osborne  
•  Administrative budgets of every main government department will be cut by a third
• 490 000 public sector jobs to go
• Core grants to local authorities will be reduced except for fire, police and education. Why is social care not exempt?
• Grant funding for social care increased by £1bn and a further £1bn to the NHS so that elderly people do not fall between the cracks of two systems. Begs the question does the chancellor know that adult social care applies to 18+ not just the elderly?
• Social Housing. Current tenants will not be changed. For future tenants will be flexible length tenancy and increased rents
• Priority given to protecting Disabled Facilities Grant
• Osbourne "Social housing changes - New tenants will have higher rents at 80% of local rent levels. Exisiting tenants unchanged "csr10 #cuts tweeted by @HovellingHermit
• Extra £2bn for social care by 2014/15
• Social Housing. New Tenants to pay 80% of market rent. No detail as to how that will work with 10% reduction in Housing Benefit, currently paid for by Local Authorities or £400 per week cap affecting places like London most severely
• An extra 150,000 affordable homes over four years? A fraction of what is needed to meet need and demand. #csr10 Tweeted by @patrickjbutler
• "A fair government makes sure that those with the broadest shoulders bear the greatest burden." George Osborne
• "I completely understand the publics anger that the banks that were so poorly regulated over the last decade and wrought such damage to our economy should be contemplating paying such high bonuses. We have set up independant commission on banking." George Osborne
• Our aim will be to extract the maximum sustainable financial revenues [from the banks] George Osborne
• Police spending to fall by 4% each year. As disability hate crime does not have the same legal protection as racial hate crime will this mean even more disabled people fall victim?
• Nor will fraud in the welfare system be tolerated anymore. We estimate £5bn is lost this year each way. We will step up our plans to combat benefit cheats
• A civilised country provides for families, protects the most vulnerable. 
• Guarantee of decent income in retirement has to be paid for. Lord Turner's report on pensions acknowledged more generous pensions must be paid for by increase in state pension age. 
• State pension age for men and women will be 66 starting in 2015
• £5bn Osborne claims is fraudulent in welfare system is disingenous at best. The figure includes official error made by DWP
• Welfare system is there to help people of working age when they lose their job, have a disability or have children. 
• "Last govt promised reform and flunked it. We will deliver" GO
• Universal Credit. Guiding rule, it will always pay to work. Those who get work will be better of than those who don't.
• UC introduced over next 2 parliaments and will go alongside new work programme we are introducing today
• DWP will make savings to help deliver these schemes by digital uses but we will also be seeking additional £200 million savings from rest of welfare bill
• Contributory ESA will be time limited to 1 year for those in employment group
• Rules on Mobility and Care elements of DLA to be aligned for those in residential care
• Tax credits, basic and 30 hour elements to be frozen
• Introducing new cap on benefits. NO family which doesn't work will receive more in benefits than the average family in work. Those in receipt of DLA WILL be excluded from this cap
• Universal benefits for pensioners, free eye tests, free TV licenses, winter fuel allowance will remain exactly as budgeted for by the previous govt
• Temporary increase in cold weather payments becomes permanent increase! This applies to those on benefits such as income support if the temperature falls below 0 degrees for at least 7 consecutive days
• Contribution based #esa limited to a year for those in employment group but what about income based #esa? Means testing by stealth? #csr @BendyGirl
• Benefits savings help protect NHS George Osborne
• So far information about changes to Disability Living Allowance are conspicuous in their absence.
• Re £5bn Osborne claims is lost to fraud in benefits system. Only £1.5bn is fraud. Rest is official error. Blatant misrepresentation of fraud levels being used as an excuse to justify cuts.

• #dla 'reforms' will probably be announced in seperate announcement - maybe when in Social Security Uprating statement announcing next year's levels @TimMullen
• Educational Maintenance Allowance to be replaced by more targeted support

 

World Mental Health Day: Fighting to be recognised, fighting for benefits

Today is World Mental Health Day. It’s also a supposedly auspicious date; many couples are rushing to marry on 10/10/10. But for those with mental illness, there is very little to celebrate. I’ve spoken to two people to find out what today means to them – and to discover how benefit cuts will affect their lives.

Ishmael, a man in his 50s, has manic depression. He is a friendly and engaging man, yet his comments are almost tongue-in-cheek, tinged with the scepticism of a man who has been through the system. He says he is “receiving benefits relevant to someone who lives under the scraped out barrel and is burnt out”.

“It is only because I do stuff for World Mental Health day that I know it is happening. And the awareness events that I have been invited to are preaching to the converted.” He feels that understanding will only come from having a close friend or partner with a disability.

So are “awareness days” actually useful? Do they lead to long-term changes, or even increase knowledge of those conditions?

Kerry is a woman in her 20s with schizoaffective disorder. She speaks eloquently about the understanding that could come if the media report mental health issues appropriately.

“I’d like news journalists to liaise better with specialist health reporters when covering news with health implications. I'm doing an interview soon on my experience of schizoaffective disorder for the Sun newspaper, and whilst their health section is surprisingly reasonable, the main pages often don't seem to have moved on from 'Bonkers Bruno'.”

While World Mental Health Day may raise the profile of mental illness among the public, it’s clear that the government could do with a better understanding of the problems faced. Kerry described the difficulties in claiming benefits, in a system which requires illness to be measured in a tangible, predictable manner:

“It's not possible to give a prognosis as to how long I'll be in a 'bad patch' or not, so when the Government demands that I should be expected to be ill for another six months, that's not meaningful. I'll probably always have schizoaffective, but no-one can tell whether I'll be able to work in 6 months or not.

“The nature of mental illness means it's hard to deal with the stressful and mentally taxing process of applying for benefits when you are at your most ill. When I most need benefits, I can't concentrate for long enough to fill in the forms, I don't properly understand why I have to do them or sometimes just how ill I am, and often I am scared to tell the Government anything because I have delusional beliefs that they will use it to harm me. Housing benefit I find the worst - when you are already scared that people are watching you for malevolent purposes, filling in 19-page forms asking which bedroom you sleep in is not a good thing to be doing.”

Kerry also applied for Employment and Support Allowance, and found the medical assessment difficult, and inappropriate for her condition:

“I found it very stressful and humiliating to answer lots of very personal questions to a complete stranger, particularly as she said she needed to know things which the voices won't even let me tell my psychiatrist. It was hard to concentrate, I was confused, and my voices were getting more and more angry that I was talking about them to this strange woman.

“Towards the end of the exam, she did some physical tests on me, like seeing how I could move my arms and legs. I thought this was bizarre, since I don't have a physical impairment, and I don't like people touching me. I was worried she would hurt me.”

When it is so difficult for someone with mental health conditions to be awarded benefits in the first place, there is a real risk that they will be left behind when the swathe of cuts come in. Ishmael is concerned: “The government thinks that by shutting down services and not paying for the needs of the mental healthers, we and our problems won't exist. I had better pull my socks up! My early years were impoverished and how to survive has stayed with me, but I am concerned for those who would not be able to manage so well.”

Kerry: “A friend with severe chronic mental illness in Liverpool has been asked to pay £70 per week to use the day centre which is her only social contact. How's she meant to find that from benefits, particularly if they are being cut?”

As their conditions can be invisible to outsiders, people with mental health issues are vulnerable when times are hard. The final word goes to Kerry, who says that we can fight this: “We don't have to roll over and let things happen. Get involved with Coalition of Resistance and / or Right to Work in your area. Even if you aren't able to help practically, tell them about cuts to benefits and services you use. Together, we can spread the message that these cuts will hurt people, screw up the economy, and we aren't just going to let it happen.”


This post was crossposted to FlashSays.com